Victoria's rural water storages have fallen more than 50 per cent in a year leading to fears of economic collapse in some communities unless catchments receive above-average rains. The state's biggest storage, the Dartmouth Dam in the far north-east, is down from 85 per cent to 41 per cent and the next biggest, Lake Eildon has dropped from 32 per cent to just 14. The figures, provided by the Department of Sustainability and Environment, show the worst-affected region is the Glenelg-Wimmera Basin in the west, which has seen its storages fall from 23 per cent to 7.7.